PIASTRE. 



worn 



Hit 



of* grand piano ; thU string was an octave higher in pitch than the 

 other two, and was tomowhat in effect like two diapasons and a principal 

 in an organ, but not no marked in character. It pleated for a time, 

 but U now no more thought of. In Mr. Trotter'* alternated kty-board 

 the peculiarity wai that of alternating the keys: thui the octave 

 came within seven white key*; the black keys, too, were passed 

 tutdtr the tMte, and finished in front of them btloto with broad head* ; 

 by which arrangement a black key could be taken by either the 

 CAMO or the Jngrr, at the option of the performer. ThU instrument 

 was called by Mr. Trotter a Irantpoting pianoforte ; and he went BO 

 far a* to promise a HOC notation for it, which notation he seemed 

 to think would do away with the present altogether. That he did 

 not live to perform his promise we much regret ; for, certainly, double 

 harps and double flats, with all their accidentals, are anything but 

 agreeable to those who cannot devote their whole lives to the study of 

 Music. 



In relation to the brariny of piano-fortes, there is a difficulty in 

 giving strength to that of the squares and grands. Some makers are 

 for iron, and some for wood ; but wood, it Booms, is inconvenient, and 

 iron is therefore mostly adopted. That strength is important, and 

 very important, is quite clear, when we know that the strings of a 

 grand piano-forte pull equal to a weight of tix tout. Iron as a sub- 

 stance, doubtless, Las the greater strength, but may not wood be 

 so applied as to be strong, enough ? That wood is more sonorous 

 than iron, there has never, we believe, been a question; and we 

 will yet hope that, sooner or later, it will be allowed to be a better 

 material. 



The piano-forte manufacture is now conducted in this country on a 

 very large scale, and comprises processes of the highest order in the 

 working of wood. The recent cheapening of the instruments has 

 resulted in part from the lessening of profits, by the establishment of a 

 number of small manufactories in competition with the few older firms. 

 But it remains nevertheless true, that a large capital, aided by highly- 

 paid workmen's skill, are necessary for the production of the best 

 instruments. Such firms as Broadwood's, Collard's, &c., keep timber 

 in store for many years, and bestow extraordinary care upon it, that it 

 may be perfectly seasoned before being used. Specimens of wood of more 

 than usual beauty are eagerly bought by such firms at enormous prices : 

 an example of this has been noticed in the article MAHOGANY. Some of 

 the piano-fortes now made, having the most complex and elaborate 

 actions, consist of very little less than four thousand separate and 

 distinct pieces, each of which, according to its material and character, 

 has to be carefully fashioned before being adjusted to its place. The 

 material thus used comprises ivory, ebony, cedar, sycamore, lime-tree, 

 pine, and oak, according to the kind of service required ; besides the 

 mahogany, rosewood, or walnut-wood of the exterior ; and besides steel, 

 iron, brass, lead, cloth, felt, leather, and vellum. 



The great extension of piano-forte music in families, and the 

 unceasing demand in the Australian and American colonies, have led 

 to a notable extension of the piano-forte manufacture within the last 

 few years. 



PIASTRE. [MONEY.] 



PIAZZA, a term adopted in its original form from the Italian, but 

 with a great change of its meaning; for while in that language it 

 signifies merely an open place, it is employed by us to denote a covered 

 ambulatory, whether formed by columns or arches, in the lower part 

 of a building, such cloistered walks being very common in the piazze 

 or public squares of Italian cities, as that of St. Mark's at Venice, &c. 

 Yet, although we have borrowed the term, it has been rather as a 

 distinct name applied in a few particular cases, than as a genera] 

 denomination ; for Inigo Jones's arcade, on the north and part of the 

 east side of Covent Garden, which is expressly called the " Piazza," is 

 the only example, except on a very small scale, that we can refer to in 

 London. 



PIBROCH, in Scottish music, the march or battle-tune of the 

 Highland clans. 



PICAMAR. rTAR.1 



PICHUR1XSTEARIC ACID. [LAUBTL ; LACBIO ACID.] 



PICOLINE (C,,H,N), is a volatile oily base, isomeric with aniline, 

 and found in coal tar. It has very powerful basic properties, and is 

 probably the same substance as the odorine described by Unverdorben. 



PICRAMIC ACID. [PDENTLIO QRonp.l 



PICRAXISIC ACID. [PHKXTLIC OBOur.l 



PICRIC ACID. [I'uESTLio GBOCP.] 



PICROL1CH K.\ I X. A colourless crystalline bitter body, found in 

 the ranolaria amara. It fuses below the boiling point of water, and 

 is insoluble in water, but very soluble in alcohol and ether. Its exact 

 composition is not known, but it does not contain nitrogen. 



-TOXIN (C.oH.0 ). The active principle of cocculut imlictu. 

 t crystallises in white quadrilateral prisms, is neither acid nor alka- 

 line, but has an intensely bitter taste. It is excesMvely poisonous ; 

 one-third of a grain introduced into the stomach of a cat produced 

 teUnic convulsions and death in ten minutes. 



IKYL (C H,,NO.) is yielded by the distillation of the pro- 

 duct obtained by acting on oil of bitter almonds with sulphide of 

 ammonium. By the action of nitric acid it is converted into trini- 

 tropicryl C a J "^ j NO. which is a yellow crystalline powder. 



PICTS, an ancient people of North Britain, whose origin and history 

 are singularly obscure, and have furnished matter for endless specula- 

 tion and controversy. The name does not occur in the cimm. 

 of the British tribes given by Ptolemy in the beginning of tin' -n.l 

 century ; nor are the PicU noticed by his successors Dion Cassius and 

 Herodian, the latter of whom wrote about A.D. 250, any more than 

 they are by his predecesors Julius Cnsar and Tacitus. This has not 

 prevented some writers from maintaining that the PicU were settled 

 in Britain before Caesar's invasion ; that is, for instance, the opinion of 

 Pinkerton ; but it U certainly at least in the highest degree improbable 

 that they should have been passed over by Ptolemy if they were hero 

 in his time. The earliest mention of them by any ancient writer 

 occurs in an oration addressed by the rhetorician Eumeniu* to the 

 emperor Constantius Chlorus, on his return from his victory over the 

 usurper Allectus, in the year 296. Eumcnius there speaks of the 

 Britanni in the time of Julius Ctesar (according to the best reading of 

 the passage) as " Sous . . . Pictis modo et Hibernis adsueti hostibu*' 

 having been used only to the PicU and Irish as enemies. 



After the time of Eumenius we have frequent mention of the PicU 

 in the Roman writers. Ammiauus Marccllinus, under the year 860, 

 speaks of the invasion of the borders of the Roman province in Britain 

 by those wild nations the ScoU and PicU " Scotorum Pictorumquc, 

 gentium ferarum." Again, in 364, he enumerates the "Picti, Sax- 

 onesque, et Scotti, et Attacotti,"as harassing the Britanni with inces- 

 sant attacks. We may just observe that the Scoti or Scotti mentioned 

 in these two passages were in all probability not yet inhabitant* of any 

 part of Britain any more than were the Soxones. But the most im- 

 portant passage in Morcellinus relating to the PicU, although it refers 

 to another probably still more important, which is unfortunately lost, 

 occurs in his annals of the year 368, where he says that, in relating the 

 actions of the emperor Constans (A.D. 337-350), he had already de- 

 scribed as well as he could the situation of Britain, and that therefore 

 it is necessary for him only to observe now, that at that time " 

 in duas gentes divisi, Dicaledonas et Vecturiones, itidemque Attacotti 

 bellicosa hominum natio, et Scotti per divcrsa vagantes, multa popula- 

 bontur." It thus appears that about the middle of the 4th century 

 the PicU were understood to be divided into two tribes, the Dicaledomc, 

 or Dicaledones, and the Vecturiones. These two names have however 

 occasioned much perplexity. The Vecturiones, or Vecturones, indeed, 

 are mentioned by Richard of Cirencester, whose work however is pos- 

 sibly nothing more than a modern forgery ; but the name Dicaledones 

 occurs nowhere but in this passage of Marcellinus. Skene (' The 1 I Hi- 

 landers of Scotland, &c.,' 1837) maintains that the PicU and Caledonians 

 were the same. The Vecturiones are admitted to be PicU, and if for 

 Dicaledones we should read, as has been proposed, Deucaledones, the 

 meaning of which is " genuine Caledonians," as in Du Albinuach, a 

 genuine ScoUman, the two tribes would appear to include the whole 

 population. 



It is very doubtful indeed in how far we ore to understand the 

 Roman writers as meaning at all the same people we now call the PicU 

 by their term Picti. That term seems always to have been used by 

 them in the sense simply of pointed men, rather than as the name of 

 any particular people. At least this notion, which we find Claudion 

 indicating in his " nee falso nomine Pictos " (' De Text. Cons. Honorii '), 

 and in other passages, seems always to have been suggested to them by 

 the name, and to have therefore induced them to apply it loosely to all 

 the wild inhabitanU of the north of Britain who were ill the habit of 

 painting their bodies, or rather among whom they supposed that prac- 

 tice to exist; and they were probably the descendants of a primitive 

 race, or the oldest of which we have any trace, the Albiones of Festus 

 Avienus, and the Albinnoch of the Welsh and native writers. More- 

 over, a derivation has been more recently traced in the Welsh peith, to 

 fight of scream, whence pic-t-a, a fighting man. 



That there was in early times a people settled in North Britain bear- 

 ing a name of which the Latin Picti was intended as the representative, 

 may be pronounced to be a fact only to be disputed by that sort of 

 scepticism which is not leas hostile to the investigation and establish- 

 ment of historic truth than the weakest credulity. They are men- 

 tioned under the name of Picti not only by Eumenius, Marcellinus, 

 Claudian, and other Roman writers, but by GUdas, Nennius, Bede, and 

 Paul Warnfrid (Paulus Diaconus), all of whom lived while the Pictish 

 kingdom still subsisted in the country now called Scotland ; Bede even 

 gives a history of the first settlement of the PicU in North Britain, 

 which may be correct or not, or partly truth, partly fable, but which 

 agrees in some remarkable poinU with the account* both of the Irish 

 and of the Norwegian or Icelandic aunolisU; the Saxon Chronicler and 

 other contemporary writers of that nation speak of them under the 

 names of Peohttu, Pyhtca, Pihtum, and Pekiti ; the Welsh IUM 

 fragments call them Phichtjaid ; the Icelandic writers, Pets; the 

 ancient Irish annalisU, Criiithne for the northern PicU, while the 

 southern were called Piccardach, names which ore sufficiently ascer- 

 tained to indicate the same people : and popular tradition in Scotland 

 still remembers them under the name of PecJu (pronounced with .1 

 deep and prolonged guttural intonation), which is probably as near 

 their true name as any of the other forms. 



The main dispute with regard to the PicU, as with regard to the 

 Caledonians, with whom they have been sometimes identified, the 

 ScoU, the Cirnbri of antiquity, and the Cymry or modern Welsh, the 



